


Dangerous Delights

by mrs_leary (julie)



Series: Translations [1]
Category: Merlin (TV) RPF, Translations (National Theatre) RPF
Genre: Friends With Benefits, M/M, Theatre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 15:46:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14957496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/pseuds/mrs_leary
Summary: Colin suspects that his and Tomiwa’s characters inTranslationswere friends with benefits … Tomiwa suspects that their former colleagues Eoin and Alex are, too. So, what’s a bloke to do but take the risk, when such a delicious idea is in the air?





	Dangerous Delights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fable/gifts), [Narlth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narlth/gifts).



> Dedicated to **Fable** with thanks for the prompt, and to **Narlth** for not discouraging us ♥

# Dangerous Delights 

♦

Usually everyone – _everyone:_ cast, crew and staff – were more than ready to dash off home after the last performance of the week. Their one day off beckoned, Colin’s one day of seven in which his life was wholly his own, and they all wanted to get a head start on it. On this Saturday night, however, well into the run of _Translations_ at the National Theatre, an impromptu post-show party had coalesced in the shared kitchen and lounge area backstage, mostly due to a delivery from a well-heeled sponsor but also partly due to the euphoria of being in a well-received production.

“I’ll let Eoin know,” Tomiwa said to Colin, already scrolling through the contacts on his phone. “He and Alex won’t mind hanging here for a while, will they?”

“Nah,” Colin replied. “Tell him there’s boxes of bottles of lager here, and he’ll be in like a shot. I already gave their names to security.”

Tomiwa smiled at Colin with a surprising warmth that might only be due to the distractions of multitasking. Then, as he pressed the call button and lifted the phone to his ear, Tomiwa settled his shoulders against the wall behind him. 

Colin mirrored his stance, so the two of them were propped together in a corner of the room, somewhat removed from the party by distance and the dimness of the lighting. They had plans to have a drink with Eoin and Alex, after all, so it wouldn’t do to become embedded in the main group. 

“Hey, Eoin –” Tomiwa began, his face lighting up as the call was answered – and then promptly turning intent as he listened. “No, I just wanted to –” A slight frown knotted that handsome brow as Tomiwa was interrupted once more. “Thank you,” he eventually said, “that’s very kind.” He glanced at Colin. “Of course I’ll tell him. … Yes, all right. … Yes, of course. Have fun, then!”

And Tomiwa ended the call, slid his phone into a pocket, and then lifted a puzzled gaze to Colin. “They, uh – Eoin and Alex have made other plans. Apparently something urgent came up!” Tomiwa passed on this ‘explanation’ with a grimace. 

“He’ll be sorry later, when we tell him about the boxes of lager.”

Tomiwa chuckled under his breath. “Quite possibly … They said you were brilliant, by the way.” 

“And you even more so, I bet,” Colin countered.

Tomiwa let the compliment slide past him, as he usually did. Teflon Tomiwa! Colin hadn’t yet managed to convey his sense of fascinated awe over Tomiwa’s acting skills – or perhaps the truth was that Tomiwa hadn’t yet heard him. And, after a while, such things drifted into … not irrelevance, Colin thought, but the realm of the unsayable. He sighed a little.

It seemed that Tomiwa was mulling over something serious, too, in between modest swigs from his bottle of beer. “You know, Colin,” Tomiwa eventually began.

“Mm?” Colin prompted.

“You know, sometimes I have my suspicions about those two.”

Colin tried to suppress a grin in response, and when his lips quirked regardless, he dropped his head to try hiding in the shadows of his long fringe. “Aye, ‘something urgent came up’, so.”

Tomiwa’s chuckle turned into quiet laughter. “You suspect them, too?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Colin deadpanned. 

“Oh, then I’m probably just imagining the _benefits_ to be found in _that_ friendship …”

They were both laughing happily now, but just between themselves. Neither of them wanted to share this particular joke with the rest of the room! 

“Imagining, eh …?” Colin pursued, hearing his own accent thicken as his tone lowered. “Wicked. I’d like to be watching through _your_ mind’s eye!”

Tomiwa had the most delicious grin, and in moments like this his humour glowed also from his gaze, from his face, from his stance, from _all_ of him.

Colin leaned a little closer still. “Tell you who else I think are friends with benefits …” he murmured with the merest hint of provocation. 

Tomiwa was watching him steadily, not even blinking. “Who, then?”

“Owen, in this play,” Colin replied, naming his own character … “and your man, Lieutenant George Yolland.”

The grin didn’t abate, but Tomiwa shook his head a little. “Are you telling me you aren’t convinced by George falling in love with Maire?”

Colin lifted a careless shoulder. Of course he couldn’t and mustn’t take anything away from Tomiwa’s heartfelt and utterly charming performance. “Before that.”

“Before they came to Baile Beag?” 

“Aye.”

A slow nod, and a slight dimming of the expansive glow, as Tomiwa processed this. Then he leaned in a little closer, too, crowding everything out so there was nothing and no one else in their little corner of the world but for the two of them. “I can see it now … George clutching at Owen in the height of passion –” Tomiwa lifted a hand to lightly grasp Colin’s upper arm and gently shake it – “and he’d be crying out, _‘Roland! Roland!’”_

Colin stared at the man – and then spluttered into laughter. It was one of the funniest and saddest parts of the play, that the English had misunderstood Owen’s name right from the start. Now, Colin and Tomiwa were both laughing, and falling into each other’s space, and it was just the most wonderful thing. Colin struggled to regain Owen’s earnestness for a moment. “Painful,” he said. “Painful! D’you know how impossible it is to reach your glory when you’re rolling your eyes in exasperation?”

“Oh, my … ‘Reach your glory’!” Tomiwa repeated with all of George’s enthusiasm, though perhaps very little of his innocence. “Sounds absolutely marvellous!” 

Colin grinned at him. _It can be_ , he found himself thinking. Wishing. Maybe offering. 

“I _had_ wondered,” Tomiwa confided, “whether it was for George’s benefit … all that time Owen spends downstage on his knees over the map … or on all fours with his rear in the air …”

Colin’s grin had become a gape. _Wicked!_ He’d encountered a mischievous Tomiwa before now, but never such an earthy one. 

The two of them considered each other for a long moment, their personal space already invaded, their gazes already direct, their intentions already plain. 

And Colin decided to take the risk. 

He grabbed Tomiwa’s free hand in his, and headed at speed for the door. Led Tomiwa down the twists and turns of the backstage corridor at a run, and then – laughing – up the winding staircase to the dressing rooms. 

At the last moment, he decided on the room Tomiwa shared with Rufus, who’d already left for the night – and then they were inside, with the door firmly closed behind them, excited and out of breath and still holding hands. 

They stared at each other as if wondering whether they’d dare to take the next step. 

Colin took refuge in lines from the show. Maire’s scene with George. “‘Oh my God,’” he blurted in his own accent, Armagh rather than Donegal – “‘that last flight of stairs nearly killed me.’”

Tomiwa nodded, to indicate he understood – though Colin was grieved to see it take the edge off his hunger. “‘I could scarcely keep up with you,’” he responded in his own English, proper but slightly less clipped than George’s.

“‘Wait till I get my breath back.’”

“‘We must have looked as if we were being chased.’”

This was the moment in which Maire and George became embarrassed, and began drawing apart. Tomiwa’s hand loosened its grip a little, as if by habit … but Colin wasn’t having any o’ that. _It can be absolutely marvellous,_ he found himself thinking again. Willing himself to take the risk. Wanting. Promising.

Colin grasped Tomiwa’s hand more firmly, and by dint of stepping forward prompted Tomiwa to step back, until Tomiwa’s arse was propped on the dressing table. Colin dropped to his knees, shaped his free hand to Tomiwa’s hip, and gazed up at the man. “ _I_ wondered … what use Owen might make of that ‘fall front’ on George’s trousers.”

Tomiwa breathed an “Ooohhh …” and his tone was more than intrigued enough to indicate consent. Not to mention the fact that the denim of his jeans did nothing to hide the thickening evidence of his interest. “I love that you know what it’s called,” Tomiwa added, in just the same tones.

Colin laughed happily. Tomiwa was always the intellect of the group, of any group in which they might find themselves. _I love that you love that I know …_

But Colin feared they were in danger of distractions. He dropped his gaze to the business at hand, and instead of unbuttoning George’s fall front, he applied his fingers – a bit too shaky to be efficient – to the fastenings of Tomiwa’s jeans. Soon enough he was able to loosen the layers of cotton and reach inside to draw out an eager cock, uncut, and as generous in size as Colin could have wished for. 

He didn’t risk embarrassment or a drawing away, he didn’t indulge his eye’s sight for even a moment, but instead pressed in close and took the man into his mouth, indulging his tongue’s taste and his lips’ touch. 

Tomiwa hissed a breath as if startled, moaned as if already satisfied, then settled a gentle hand at Colin’s nape – not forcing him nor even encouraging, but as if blessing him. The shape they made together, the conjunction of that hand and Colin’s nape, Colin’s throat and Tomiwa’s cock – that shape was perfection.

Colin was already well into a rhythmic sucking, and he applied the flat of his tongue as well, rubbing and pressing along the shaft. Another groan from Tomiwa indicated he was already close. Colin circled a finger and thumb around the base of him, but not to slow him down – to pull back on Tomiwa’s foreskin and expose his cockhead to the attentions of Colin’s tongue, speed him along.

Tomiwa shifted a little, and cried out – with a hint of protest or maybe even pain that had Colin pausing and looking up at the man. But Tomiwa nodded in reassurance and simply slid his free hand in past where Colin was still fully engaged with him, not dislodging him at all, but with a sigh of relief sorting out some mishap between briefs and balls. 

Another nod, and Colin set to work again, doubling the intensity, and absurdly stirred by the fact that Tomiwa didn’t withdraw his hand but instead tugged at his own balls, once, twice – and in such a messily wonderful configuration Tomiwa came, crying out, and Colin eagerly swallowed him down, loving the rich salty flavour of the man.

“Oh …” Tomiwa was saying, curled forward a little around Colin, protectively, though not crowding him. “Oh …” as he stroked Colin’s hair. “Oh, my dear friend,” he said lightly, fondly, lifting up again and waiting for Colin’s gaze to find his own. “I reached my glory indeed.”

Colin guffawed, and began the process of carefully disengaging from Tomiwa’s tender places and letting him tuck himself away. Colin had thought about simply plunging a hand down into his own jeans and quickly bringing himself off, sharing in Tomiwa’s pleasure. But Colin found that he was selfish enough in this time and place to want something for himself instead. 

As he stood up again, so close, so aware of Tomiwa’s strong thighs braced, of the glimpses of silky skin between the rumpled shirttails and blue denim – as Colin stood up again, Tomiwa’s hands were immediately at Colin’s jeans, an intent frown furrowing his face as he pushed the waistband down past Colin’s hips without bothering to undo them, leaving his briefs in place – for now. The friction of the denim rubbing down along his cock almost ended the matter right there.

“Would you turn around?” Tomiwa asked, looking up at Colin. “Please? I want to see that elegant rear you’ve been teasing me with.”

“You do?” Colin said thickly. “It’s not much to look at,” he added, even as he was turning around. “It’s a wee sorry thing compared to yours.”

“You’ve thought about yours and mine and how they compare?” Tomiwa’s tone was even, and his hands were steady at either side of the waist of Colin’s briefs. 

“It’s the suspenders!” Colin blurted. He didn’t want to admit that he’d had similar thoughts, many long years ago, about another colleague with a similarly gorgeous rounded arse … Besides, it was true: “The suspenders George wears, holding those trousers up.”

Colin’s briefs were slowly pushed down and down … His cock sprang free, then his balls took their own weight, and his briefs were a band around the top of his thighs, hinting at restriction. The coolness of air against him. The warmth of his imagining of Tomiwa’s gaze.

Colin faltered on with his explanation. “The – the way his suspenders lift the fabric up snug around your arse … It’s a thing of beauty, your arse in those trousers.”

Tomiwa had taken his hands away, and Colin was left standing there alone with his back to his friend, and barely an acknowledging murmur under Tomiwa’s breath. The coolness of the air prickled his forearms into goosebumps. If only they were facing in another direction, if only they were facing either of the two mirrors in the room – not that Colin wanted to see himself, but he could have sought a glance across his shoulder from Tomiwa, and been better able to measure where they were at.

“ _Le do thoil,_ ” Colin whispered instead. _Please._

“I prefer yours,” Tomiwa said suddenly, as if tripping back into speech. “Mine is the unfortunate result of playing too much football. I like yours …” he said again, musingly, “very much.” 

Colin let out a laugh as rough as bark. “My arse has no style and no substance.”

“It’s elegant,” Tomiwa insisted. Then he asked, “Trust me?”

Colin nodded, for what it was worth. He felt strangely helpless. But he was still fully engorged, and in dire need of relief. That had to count for something. His body trusted Tomiwa. His mind trusted Tomiwa, no question about that. Colin was beginning to wonder what the fuck his emotions were doing, but he was so charged up that it seemed caution had already been thrown to the winds. “Yes,” he said.

“Thank you.” Always so scrupulously polite. So obviously decent, no matter what his intentions. No matter what his intentions were, they would be decent ones.

Colin heard the shuffle of material being shifted – he assumed clothes being parted further – and then Tomiwa’s hands at his hips, encouraging him back, encouraging him to settle with his naked arse cool against the warmth of Tomiwa’s hips and all that was between them, the dampness of the sex they’d already had, the softness of Tomiwa’s spent cock, the gorgeous roundness of his balls, the strength of his thighs. 

Tomiwa sighed happily, and let his forehead fall against Colin’s shoulder. “Oh, that is nice …”

His response was going to be a retort of some kind, despite the fact it felt plenty nice to him, too, but Colin was ambushed again. Tomiwa’s left hand spread and slid down from Colin’s hip to the tender skin in the crease between body and thigh – while his right hand slid further down to tug at Colin’s balls just as he’d tugged at his own, once, twice – and then shifted up to wrap around Colin’s cock and begin a deliberate stroke that was going to _destroy_ him. 

The way Tomiwa held him, the pressure of his hand was _perfect_ , just the right side of too hard, just how Colin liked it best, as if Tomiwa was meant to be there. But the way he moved, the rhythm and the rhyme of it, was like nothing Colin had ever had before. It was unexpected, it was _fantastic_. He muttered a curse against God under his breath, knowing that he wouldn’t have time to explore – 

– and moments later Colin was arching back with a hoarse shout, secured by those gorgeous thighs, his come tossed out of him to fall _splat … splat … splat_ against the dressing room floor. Glorious, indeed!

Then he was collapsing in upon himself, and Tomiwa was holding him, enfolding him, and giving him the time and perfect place in which to recover. Not that Colin wasn’t still a tad dizzy when he finally pulled away to stand on his own two feet again. He put his clothes to rights, as Tomiwa was doing, and then sat in Rufus’s chair, turning it to face his friend. 

Tomiwa sat down in his own chair, and turned it towards Colin, likewise. They sat there for a short while, catching their breaths. Until at last Tomiwa asked, “All right? Colin …?”

“Yes,” he replied, voice still hoarse. “You?”

“Oh, yes.”

Tomiwa reached for a bottle of water (reusable, of course), and they passed it back and forth between them, rehydrating, and not avoiding each other’s glancing gazes, until at last things began to seem relatively normal again. As much as they could. 

Colin was skin-pricklingly aware that something had changed between them. And he wasn’t entirely sure, but he didn’t think he wanted to go back to how things had been before. Not that it hadn’t been grand, but perhaps … 

Well, he hadn’t the words to describe it to himself yet, let alone to Tomiwa. So he decided to go with something he’d been trying to say for months now.

“I respect you.” And again, because he wanted this to stick: “Tomiwa, I respect you, so.”

“Colin …” Tomiwa murmured in wonder, his gaze searching out the truth of this, as if it was the most marvellous thing anyone had ever said to him. “Oh, _Colin_  …”

Colin grinned, and shook his head in mock bafflement, and let Tomiwa look for whatever he wanted from him.

Was that all it was? Respect …? No, there was more, far more. But Colin himself didn’t want to define it any further for now … It was scary, the thought that he might finally have met his match. It was the scariest thing Colin had faced for too many years. But part of him welcomed it. A warm sense of certainty settled within him, and Colin felt an affectionate smile grow from that place, a smile that Tomiwa was more than astute enough to read _exactly_. And Colin dared to let that smile reach his face – and it was returned a hundredfold.

♦


End file.
